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The revival of civilizational analysis is closely linked to a broader cultural turn in the human sciences. Comparative civilizational approaches accept the primacy of culture, but at the same time, they strive to avoid the cultural determinism familiar from twentieth-century sociology, especially from the Parsonian version of functionalism. To situate this twofold strategy within contemporary cultural sociology, it seems useful to link up with the distinction between a strong and a weak program for the sociological analysis of culture, proposed by Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith. The strong program, also described as cultural sociology, stresses the constitutive role of culture in all domains and across the field of social life; the weak program, more precisely the sociology of culture, treats culture as a variable factor among others, and in some important respects subordinate to others. From this point of view, civilizational analysis is, first and foremost, a particularly ambitious version of the strong program: its emphasis on different cultural articulations of the world, as well as on the large-scale and long-term social-historical formations crystallizing around such articulations, adds new dimensions to the autonomy of culture. It also reinforces the hermeneutical stance of cultural sociology and cautions against the acceptance of mainstream explanatory models. On the other hand, the civilizational perspective highlights the variety of interconnections between culture and other components of the social world, and thus takes into account some of the themes favoured by the weak program.

Si on prend l'idée de Braudel d'une grammaire des civilisations plus au sérieux que le fait le livre du même titre, il faut définir plus clairement les composants qu'ont les formes culturelles en commun. L'hypothèse de travail de M. Hodgson selon laquelle la différence entre les cultures dépend moins de leurs éléments constitutifs que du poids relatif des derniers et de leur interrelation peut nous servir de fil conducteur. Cet article met en perspective plusieurs tentatives de traiter de cette problématique. On peut analyser des civilisations, en se référant à Durkheim et Mauss, comme différentes manières de mettre en relation le culturel, le politique et l'économique. On peut aussi les analyser, sous le point de vue des dynamiques de longue durée, en mettant l'accent sur les structures élémentaires des traditions. À cet égard les idées de Hodgson s'avèrent particulièrement utiles. Enfin on peut, tel que le fait S. N. Eisenstadt, regarder des civilisations comme des cadres dans lesquels ont lieu des transformations de longue durée des rapports entre les niveaux culturel, institutionnel et organisationnel d'une société.

The idea of negative Platonism, first formulated by Jan Patočka in the early 1950s, can be understood as an interpretation of the history of philosophy, with particular reference to its Greek beginnings, as well as a strategy for critical engagement with the metaphysical tradition and a reformulation of central phenomenological themes. Patočka reconstructs the Greek road to metaphysics as a shift from a non-objectifying comprehension of the world as a totality to a quest for systematic knowledge of ultimate reality. In light of this reclaimed background, he then proposes a new reading of Plato: the realm of ideas, separate from empirical reality, becomes a symbol of human freedom, understood as an ability to transcend the world and in so doing grasp it as a totalizing horizon. The concept of freedom thus links a submerged theme of metaphysics to more explicit concerns of contemporary thought.

The notion of a 'clash of civilizations', which now seems to have become a fashionable cliché, should be discussed in the context of a broader set of questions: the problematic of intercivilizational encounters. This is an important but very underdeveloped part of the research programme now known as civilizational analysis. The article begins with a brief survey of the Indian experience. Indian history includes a long succession of intercivilizational encounters, both those initiated from the West (by Greeks, Muslims and Europeans) and those that brought Indian influence to bear on other regions (as did the spread of Buddhism to East Asia and the 'Indianization' of Southeast Asia). These examples serve to sketch a phenomenology of encounters. For a more theoretical approach, the article turns to the work of Benjamin Nelson, who first introduced the concept of intercivilizational encounters. His analyses focus on the encounters that involve contacts or conflicts between the basic 'structures of consciousness' that define different civilizations. Such interactions can lead to fusion or to prolonged internal conflicts, but they may also be instructive because of the very absence of significant effects: in the latter case, fundamental blockages to intercivilizational borrowing or engagement are built into the structures of consciousness. For Nelson, the early modern encounter between China and the West was a prime example of that kind. The last part of the article takes the question beyond Nelson's historical cases and relates it to the advanced phase of modernity, where the dominant type of encounters is three-cornered: it involves Western and non-Western civilizations as well as the new (modern) civilizational patterns adumbrated in the West but open to redefinitions in other contexts.

The relationship between multiple and successive patterns of modernity has emerged as a central issue in current debates. But the problem must be posed in different terms in different settings: there are regions and states where the sequence of patterns can be reconstructed in terms of an internal logic, whereas in other cases, it is conspicuously dependent on historical and geopolitical contexts. This article deals with the history of the Czechoslovak state (1918–92) as an example of the latter kind. The discussion begins with reflections on the background: the path from a national movement to a multi-national state. Socio-political constellations within this state reflect unresolved tensions between liberal and organized modernity, but also between different versions of the latter. The state was destroyed by the briefly ascendant Fascist version of organized modernity and then reconstructed on the basis of the Communist one. The Communist takeover was due to geopolitical circumstances, but facilitated by a strong current of indigenous radicalism; at a later stage, however, this current found expression in the most ambitious attempt to reform the Communist version of organized modernity.

Der Verfasser plädiert für einen pluralistischen Zivilisationsbegriff. Seine Argumentation lässt sich in vier Stichpunkten zusammenfassen: Zivilisationen sind erstens Hochkulturen und sie sind zweitens Makrokulturen. Als solche sind sie auch von der Soziologie thematisiert worden (Durkheim, Weber, Mauss). Sie sind drittens einerseits mehr als Kulturen - die Problematik der Zivilisationsanalyse geht nicht in einem totalisierenden Kulturbegriff auf - und andererseits viertens nicht mehr Kulturen - ein umfassendes Programm des Zivilisationsvergleichs wird erst retrospektiv konzipiert, aus der Perspektive der Moderne. (ICE2)

Criticises Peter Murphy's (2005) article in support of the Iraq war. The author comments on the cursory attention to Middle Eastern problems and provides a closer examination of historical context. Reference is made to the demise of the Ottoman Empire and how this led directly to the current volatility of the Middle Eastern. Remarks are offered on the real American motives for initiating the war as well as a criticism of the so-called democratization and political reconstruction of Iraq. Further commentary focuses on Murphy's assertion that America's 'knowledge-intensive' regime is little more than a front for 'arrogance of power.' In conclusion, the author feels that liberals have confused internationalism with imperial regression. 3 References. S. de Haast